Fire
by OPYKJ
Summary: Kathryn Janeway's thoughts, regrets and hopes during the Year of Hell. 100-word drabbles following the episode timeline.
1. Chapter 1

_Great thanks to Helen8462 for her suggestions and beta work. The story's end is all the much better for her input._

* * *

 **Part 1**

###

 **Day 32 - Family**

My First Officer sees options I close my mind to, choices I can't contemplate as yet. He is right to point out those possibilities although he knows that 'abandon ship' is not in my vocabulary. I can't let dead crew members or an unlucky teacup dictate the ship's fate.

 _As long as Voyager's in one piece, we stay._

I can't break up the family. I won't split up the crew. It will take a lot more bad luck, many more hard knocks to make me reconsider. Together, Chakotay and I will keep the ship intact.

 _We're stronger as a team._

###

 **Day 47 - Titanic**

The Titanic.

Really?

The irony does not escape me. Like every Starfleet cadet, I know of the magnificent ship sporting the best technology of the day. Four hundred and sixty years before Voyager was launched, there was birthed the Unsinkable Ship.

 _It sank_ , I say. During its fateful maiden voyage, drifting to a dark icy grave, captain at the helm. A grand gesture which didn't expunge his responsibility for recognising too late the hull crushing signs of his ship's death.

Chakotay knows that if the end demands it, I'll stay.

Alone. Shirt tucked in.

I just hope he'll stay safe.

###

 **Day 65 – Birthday**

Time snaps at my heels, threatening to trip me closer to failure. The ship is disintegrating around us, hardly a home anymore. More like the derelict raft Chakotay tells me about, the shiny watch in his hand, his thoughtfulness wrapped around it.

I throw him an excuse. A pathetic, stupid reference to meals and boots that feels a lie as soon as I say it. Time is what I am afraid of, time passing me by, ticking ever so silently.

He moves away. I've hurt him once again, as I do so well.

I wonder if he'll keep the watch.

###

 **Day 70 – Chakotay**

Chakotay is gone, taken by a tinkerer playing with time like a dog bothering a bone. How long has Annorax been fooling around with everybody's past? What of my own? How many times has it been erased and rebirthed?

I ache for Chakotay, but what is the truth of that longing? As much as I want my feelings for him to be immune to time shuffling, they might disappear next time Annorax unleashes his weapon. Or they might have never existed until now and I own feelings which were never mine.

Right now, I want him back at my side.

###

 **Day 73 – Escape pods**

Chakotay forewarned me barely a month ago that I would split the family.

 _We will find each other again._

How well I lie. I've thrown my crew into the unknown again. They followed me when I wanted to go home faster, straying into Annorax' territory. Now I'm abandoning them to the whims of a time lord bent on building a future from genocide.

But there is reason behind my madness to cling to Voyager and seek to end Annorax' reign. Just surviving, day after day, is not enough. I've lost my crew. I've lost Chakotay.

I can't lose my ship.


	2. Chapter 2

**PART 2**

###

 **Day 133 – Leaving**

Hiding is not my strong point. Staying put in these corroding clouds won't help, despite Seven's criticism and Tuvok's muted disapproval.

How I'll persuade those aliens whose pasts have been distorted many times, I don't know. The wreck that is Voyager must have something of value to trade for so I can build an alliance against a foe of such arrogance that even the Borg in their search for perfection seem more reasoned, more human.

I'll bring the war to Annorax because I am the only one who can. I hope eternity will be long enough for me to succeed.

###

 **Day 161 – No news**

I accept that the sands of time swallow everyone into their depths, that names and deeds one day will be no more, that memories do wither, out of breath. But I want to believe Chakotay is still alive, and that I do not remember a love who is no more while everything else wobbles in and out of existence around me.

Alone in my quarters, I remove my clothes and close my eyes. The warmth of his smile meanders down my body while his fingers trace light trails on my skin, bringing me to life.

The ship moans with me.

###

 **Day 180 – Fire**

A fire needs heat, oxygen and fuel. I have not realised the half-destroyed ship is capable of providing all three in such abundance, when the remaining crew lacks for so much.

I hesitate. _Why do I get the feeling you're testing me, Voyager?_

I've built my own pyre of reckless decisions, and now, six months into this Krenim nightmare, the ship is finally turning against me, clamouring for my sacrifice. Leaving the crew behind, making me run, taking Chakotay have not been enough.

If that's what it takes, I am ready. Voyager needs me, wants me.

 _Do it._

 _Be kind._

###

 **Day 207 – The watch**

The heavy pocket watch swings at my side. I rewind it every evening, a not-so-subtle reminder of what unravels around us.

Would I be tempted to reverse my life if I had Annorax' power at my fingertips? I've made my share of dubious decisions which I would love to see deleted forever. The question is how far back I would need to go so that my future-self is reborn unburdened by guilt, hurt and bitterness.

But then, my new path would never had met Chakotay's and it is too high a price to pay to think of my life without him.

###

 **Day 226 – Staying**

The end is rumbling like a targ charging through Voyager's empty corridors. I sense the threads of time are coming together, weaving a future without Annorax and his ship of doom. A future where I promise myself, I will tell Chakotay what burns within me every day I see him.

In this other time and in this other place, I will leave my precious protocols behind, and at last, he'll know how he makes each light-year easier to travel, how he carries me each day that much closer to home.

In that future, I will tell him I love him.

###

 **Day 257 –** **Time's up**

The forcefield shimmers and I glimpse another possibility, a different reality where time resets itself and all that befell us during this year of hell disappears, never to have existed. One where my crew is safe and whole, and Voyager's course set for home again, even as the new future I envisaged for Chakotay and me never comes to pass.

I fear I will allow myself to return to my captain's role and close my heart once more. It's too late to let him know of my promise. Too late to share our love.

 _Time's up._

Because he won't rememb—


End file.
